ghost of you
by fall from stars
Summary: ONESHOT—Hey, he offers, one last time, a copout. I’m going to make it all stop. [AxelRoxas friendship]


**Ghost of You  
By Matinee Idol**

_For Alex, a.k.a Axel-Kaylee-Cloud,  
__who's got it memorized and is made of awesome.  
__Keep on rockin' in Midgar._

**Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue  
****Thought I heard you talking softly  
****I turned on the lights, the TV, and the radio  
****Still I can't escape the ghost of you…  
****What is happening to me?  
****Crazy, some would say  
****Where is the friend that I recognize?  
****Gone away…**

—**Ordinary World  
****Duran Duran **

The day Roxas leaves Axel doesn't know what to feel. He knows he's got to feel something—he's just got to. Roxas was too important to just leave in search of someone else. Roxas was too important to just drop out of the Organization, taking its name with him. Roxas was too important not to be missed.

But feeling sorry that he's gone hurts somewhere, strikes Axel down where he can't see it. He doesn't know what to feel—and settles with angry-confused-worried-sad-ashamed.

It doesn't matter. They're all such empty words and without Roxas there to make him complete-full-something, Axel's turned back to empty.

It's the way he began. And he settles into it so easily, as if he's never left, as if Roxas never existed.

---

Axel's smart and he's tricky, but he can't trick himself for very long. Soon he starts seeing Roxas everywhere, like new bright memories come to life.

He decides that he hates those monsters called memories. Axel was born with someone else's hand-me-down, worn memories—ones that were foreign instead of familiar, cold instead of warm, detached instead of together.

_Lae_—that was his name. Lae was who he was before the darkness came and swallowed him up, heart body and soul. Lae was who he was before he burnt his way back out to this maybe-existence.

His own memories are scattered between places—Castle Oblivion, a handful of worlds, the Castle That Never Was. And he'll run through darkness everywhere, trying to shun his memories of Roxas the way Roxas shunned him.

But he's been everywhere with Roxas, and his memories won't let him forget.

In Port Royal he sees a blond-haired boy incognito, beads in his hair and makeup rimming his eyes, a lopsided pout on his lips and a concentrated glint in his eye. In Agrabah there are bright blue eyes shining out from under a costume turban, a long cape billowing behind a small body in the desert wind. In Halloween Town, the warlock that comes to the door with tricks up his sleeve is none other than _him_.

Roxas—the Key of Destiny—number XIII—the ghost boy is everywhere. And Axel can't escape him.

---

Axel's been running through all the words he knows lately. He wants to say the right thing when he finds Roxas—wherever he's been. He's murmured things to the ghost-memories of Roxas he's seen. _Why did you leave? What did you want? Why didn't you stay with me? Did I even matter to you? Did you ever think I needed you? Did you ever think you needed me?_

But when he finds Roxas again, everything changes. He's in clothes that don't suit him, and his hair's even more a wreck than usual. He's small, so small, and Axel remembers for once just how young he really is. He looks tired, like he hasn't gotten much sleep lately. He has a Keyblade—just one, like Naminé had told him.

"He's not powerful anymore," she had said in the white white room while Axel looked at the picture of himself and his friend together. "You can bring him back. But…he won't remember you."

"That I don't believe," he'd said, giving her a last "hey thanks" before diving into Roxas' digital prison.

But now the enemies are gone—Dusks, left over from when Axel first sent them after the pictures. Roxas looks up, like he's expecting more. Axel claps from his seat in the corner. Roxas isn't a total weakling at least, though he's seen much better.

"Roxas, all right. Fight, fight, _fight_," he says, oh so casually, like he doesn't care, like he hasn't spent the better part of six months searching for him, and for this day. Roxas only frowns.

"You really don't remember?" Keep it casual, keep it light. Invest too much and you'll just get burnt. "It's me. You know…Axel."

"Axel?" The word is foreign on Roxas' mouth.

They exchange useless words afterwards, sharp and biting, and when Roxas won't come quietly—the real Roxas, the one that's not a ghost, the one that's not a memory—Axel brings the chakram forward, spinning them slowly between his fingers, avoiding the spikes.

"Hey," he offers, one last time, a copout. "I'm gonna make it all stop."

But Roxas doesn't want the good times he "remembers" to stop. He wants this invader from the past gone and dead and anywhere that's far away from him.

_It's never going to stop_, Axel thinks, a little uselessly, and continues the battle, much as it pains him to do it.

When DiZ comes and Roxas calls out for other friends, names Axel's never heard—Hayner-Pence-Olette—that's when Axel knows Roxas is really dead. It doesn't matter that he's still there. It doesn't matter that he looks the way Axel remembers.

Roxas was dead the day he lost to Riku, the day he was brought to DiZ, the day he came here.

_He's long-gone, six feet under_, Axel thinks bitterly,_ and when I get back to that castle, that stupid stone of his is going to glow red. _When he's back, the stone glows blue. The Proof of Existence room says that he's alive, but Axel's still seeing red. _Red, so he's dead_.

That's when Axel knows that nothing he can do is ever going to bring Roxas back.

---

**fin. **

**a/n: **Because this is what I do instead of homework, or NaNoWriMo, or something equally important. Reviews make my day. :D


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